Cheningo Camping Area

I gave 1 star for it still being free, and the 2nd star was for the decent road in, and that areas are mowed. Otherwise, this place was swampy, tons of bugs and no fire pits, no privy’s.

The way to locate it is that it is directly across from a day use only location and even then as i was pulling around to the exit of the day use stop i just happened to notice a truck driving into the woods across the road. Upon closer inspection i observed a NYS DEC bulletin board iff to the side of the entrance.

At&t users will have NO SERVICE AT OR NEAR THIS LOCATION SO DOWNLOAD YOUR MAPS.

THis location is okay for RV if it hadn’t rained a lot and you must have 4 wheel drive if you bring in an RV of any significant weight.

This site is not for everyone, but fit our RV style nicely. The location is remote, well off the beaten trail, and a little tricky to spot. We did a recon day trip to evaluate it before towing our RV. The entrance to the gravel loop is directly across the road from a day use area with a small picnic shelter. The southern end of the loop was very muddy so would be difficult for a big rig and a challenge for anything but 4 or AWD. There are several sites of various sizes around the perimeter, as well as 3 large open fields with primitive fire pits on the interior of the loop. We were able to easily maneuver our 2WD truck and 35’ fifth wheel into position in one of the fields. The site was not level, we had to raise one side of our rig almost 8”. I’m not sure how often the grass is mowed, but can confirm that the sites are maintained. On our recon, the grass was thigh high, but a week later when we brought the rig, it had been mowed.

On the downside, there was lots of evidence that this might be a party spot as there was a lot of trash in the fire pits, mostly beer bottles and cans. We stayed Wednesday through Friday morning and had the entire loop to ourselves save for one car that drove through and left. So the partying (& littering) might be limited to the weekends. We cleaned all the trash we could find throughout the loop and didn’t quite fill a single large trash bag. We were rewarded for our attempt to be good stewards with 3 Frisbee golf disks! While we were there, the deer flies were horrendous, but that may have just been due to the hot humid weather. We had no Verizon service at all.

On the upside, the site is serene and tranquil. Very quiet with barely any traffic noise despite the proximity of the road. Part of the Finger Lakes Trail passes right through the grounds and leads to a beautiful stream crossing next to a beaver dam. There is a short section of trail that continues in a loop back to the main road less than a mile from the entrance to the loop, so would make a nice easy hike. The Trail continues on the day use side of the road. Although it gets steeper pretty quickly, before it does, it passes close to another picturesque stream.

Although we managed to get temporarily stuck in the mud when we pulled out of the clearing back onto the loop, I blame it on my lack of experience and the poor traction of our dually 2WD truck.